Bridge leader says list of candidates for ministerial positions ready

The Bridge reformist party's leader Bozo Petrov told reporters on Tuesday that a list of the party's candidates for ministerial positions was ready and that they would be interviewed by Prime Minister-Designate Tihomir Oreskovic.

Petrov made the statement ahead of a session of the Bridge National Council which sat until late into the night on Monday. Members of the National Council and elected Bridge members of Parliament on Tuesday morning continued their session to discuss the distribution of Bridge members across parliamentary committees and a schedule for individual meetings of ministerial candidates with the Prime Minister-Designate.

"At the meeting of the National Council we will be discussing operational steps, the parliament, committee seats, as well as when our candidates might be interviewed by PM-Designate Oreskovic," Petrov said.

Answering a reporter's question, he said that Bridge's list of candidates for ministers was ready.

He declined to reveal any names or to comment on whether ministerial positions should be taken by Bridge members who were elected to parliament, saying only that all the proposed candidates were competent in their fields of work.

"Eventually, we will present the names of only those candidates on whom agreement is reached because that is fair to other candidates," said Petrov.

Asked if there was any disagreement with Bridge MP Ivan Lovrinovic, who the media claim is not hiding his ambition to join the government, Petrov said that he was not aware of any disagreements. "I don't see that there is any disagreement. We were all here and we discussed things normally," he said, adding that a lot that was being reported by the media should be ignored.

Ruzica Vukovac, who is being mentioned in the media as Bridge's most likely candidate for the position of Agriculture Minister, would neither confirm nor deny the reports. "I still don't know, we will discuss that now," Vukovac said when asked if she would be Agriculture Minister.

Vukovac said that if given the opportunity, she would not have anything against it. "I am the only one who lives agriculture and that is my advantage, but we'll see what PM-Designate Oreskovic will consider as important," she told reporters.

Beirut (dpa) - Syrian government forces and their allies advanced deeper into the shrinking rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo on Wednesday, seizing the Old City, while demanding the armed opposition groups leave the area.